TinkiNova7

One Piece takes a while to get going and can be a rather difficult franchise to get into, especially with its raw length. The series is largely dedicated to introducing protagonists early on whom only improve as it goes on, starting out fairly lackluster. Luffy and Zoro, the main protagonists, are generic and largely exist just as generic protagonists to go through the arcs and defeat the villains. The other 7 crew members all get pretty heavy development with plenty of likable qualities, though, so it's not a slog aside from the start. The series really begins with the Arlong arc a good 75 chapters in.

The series should largely be read for the big villain arcs, as they are the highlight of the series. While the minions of the villains aren't used much, this is largely done to glorify the current arc's villain above all others and is done to pretty great effect. Some arcs, most notably Rob Lucci and Crocodile, tend to drag a bit, but these are few and far between.

The best villains are those whom have dedicated arcs to themselves and are defeated, but the series has massive amounts of power creep with characters getting stronger and stronger. This alone wouldn't be that bad of a problem, as it is expected in most any shonen, but the characters who are built up as invincible threats are background non characters such as Shanks and Mihawke. Constantly glorifying characters such as these who do absolutely nothing over villains who had great arcs gets very tiresome very quickly, and the author constantly dangles them in front of the reader's face with promise to actually use them then never actually does.

In addition, the author has an obsession with not allowing any characters to die, even retroactively resurrecting the most minor of characters. This is almost always a bad thing for villains, as instead of dying they're retroactively humiliated when they show up much later in the series as weaklings. The one exception to this is the Impel Down arc, which is a prison break arc involving a lot of the old villains.

The manga is at its best when focusing on just one big villain at a time in an arc for the most part, and these segments are plenty worth reading the manga for. The only big continuity comes from the Impel Down and Marineford arcs, which brings everything to a pretty satisfying climax and may as well be the end of the manga, as only a few relatively episodic arcs have been written after it.

One Piece does a great job of world building as it goes along, introducing dozens of characters and locations it goes out of its way to develop and make memorable. The manga begins to go a bit overboard with the quantity of characters it produces, as the author is incredibly ambitious with his assumption that he'll get around to using them all. The flood of characters can make it difficult to get some of the earlier styled arcs focusing on a single villain, especially after Marineford.

As messy as One Piece can be, at its core it is a very simple shonen that does little to subvert the genre with good climaxes and fights, which is great if that's what you're looking for. Later on, some of the villains decay and the protagonists become too powerful for the villains to put up much fight, but the best moments of the manga are already past you at that point.

10/10 for everything

Story: 10/10
It's probably the best long-run shounen out there. To put it aside Naruto, Bleach and Fairy Tail doesn't do it justice whatsoever. The 3 latter ones probably can only come up to OP's ankle at BEST when it comes to plot and characters.

Art: 10/10
The art just gets better and better

Character: 10/10
No need for words. Every character has their own purpose

Enjoyment: 9/10
Deducted 1 point because some scenes are a bit dragged but that's just me trying to be nitty picky

Overall: 10/10
Would rate it 11/10 if compared to the other "popular" shounen

I don't necessarily despise One Piece for being a bad manga. I loathe it for being utterly mediocre. The series has a potential in each new arc to be something more, but the author often prefers to choose his tired and mundane formula.

I genuinely don't feel any kind of emotion reading this series. When I first started, I was a bit more younger I admit but there was a thing or two here and there that induced certain emotions, whether they were happiness, sadness, anger, or pride. But right now, reading the series almost feels like a chore; something I feel obliged to do after investing in it for so long. But deep in my mind, I honestly just don't care. Whether Luffy becomes Pirate King or dies unceremoniously to some random fodder, I equally don't care. But now that I think about it, the latter option might be a little more interesting for the sheer reason that I didn't see it coming. Even though it's straight up shit writing, I'd prefer it because it would have succeeded to induce at least something.

The series main's downfall is that it fails to make the readers uncertain. Ninety percent of the events are rehashed that a six-year old could see them coming from a mile away. The other ten percent are quickly glossed over, either in arc epilogues, or in small random portions of info-dump. The side characters at this point are far more interesting than the main ones. You often keep hearing about them, but never truly see how they go about their plans until it's too late. For a series that has gone for so long, you'd expect a respectable amounts of creativity and intrigue, but the majority of the big arcs are the same story, bar the setting and the hero's outfit-of-the-week. Oda tries to force these emotions out of his readers by his dishonest, sometimes borderline manipulative attempts of characters crying buckets of water, screaming their lungs out, or saying "badass" lines. But here I am, all I'm thinking about is that I've seen this exact moment in this and that arc. This doesn't just make the interior plot incredibly easy to guess, but so are the character actions, motives, and decisions.

I could go on and on about other aspects I hate, like the poor fight choreography and writing, but these will just be droplets of water against the core issue, which is that the whole series is incredibly dull to think about.

If happiness is my favorite series, and sadness is things I hate with a passion. One Piece will be depression.

i really loved this manga so much. i'm so sad that it stopped right before musashi arrived at kokura, but i understand that the author is having a hiatus, it's not easy keeping up with the ambitious and intricate art.

musashi's character is truly lovable. from the first volumes – where he's beastly, wild and merciless. to later on, where he begins to find peace and understanding. i think the first turning point was definitely with inshun, but the most important one was the battle against the 70 yoshioka men. not only was it heavily influencing musashi's state of mind, but due to ueda's cut at his calf, he almost had to give up the sword.

i think this turning point really awoken something within musashi, by this time kojirou was on his mind too. and that's another beautiful aspect to this manga, kojirou's character. all that he has is the sword, nothing else. and because of this fact, he's extremely skilled. he's like flowing water, and musashi strives to become like that too.

this is another thing i really loved, musashi's and kojirou's connection with nature. kojirou grew up by the beach, close to the water. but musashi grew up in the mountains, wild and untamed. they're like two halves of one.

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some other comments about this manga:

seijuro was so misunderstood by the yoshioka, he deserved way better and tbh he needed a more screentime imo.

i loved musashi's relationships with the old men, their interactions were so wholesome and cute.

matahachi is a crybaby bitch, jk i love him.

and finally, musashi sweetie please shave i miss your bare face.

Finally read Monster after countless years, and it's an amazingly good manga,free from most traps that make especially seinen manga a dreadful cornucopia of blandness, and managing to claw its way to classic status.

Story : 9/10
Easily Monster's strong suit, the storyline is extremely, be it plot , dialogue, and even the translated text holds some literary value in parts. Naoki Urasawa here, as he does with Pluto later, sets his story mostly in Germany , something unusual for a manga but I reckon even more close to the affections and experiences of most Western readers. He masterfully weaves long, seemingly totally disconnected threads , of different characters in different cities , countries, and decades, and then proceeds to masterfully weave them into an ever more closely knit patchwork of vastly different expressions of the human condition. Maybe the best part of the story is the multitude of well thought-out characters with all sort of different motives , backgrounds and modus operandi starting to arrive to the same place through totally different leads, although this starts to wear itself thin by the last 4 volumes . As for the characters , surely some of them exhibit different tropes and stereotypes, but they're for the most part some of the most multi-faceted I've come across in this medium. Another element that sees strong use here is the non-linearity ,both in storytelling and character presentation, done in such a matter that different tidbits of action or reflection from mostly unaware characters , and flashbacks and retellings of the same encounters or memories from many different angles , serve to masterfully reduce and delineate a seemingly chaotic plot into a lucid raconte.


Art : 8/10
The art plays second fiddle in this work, and while it is certainly way above average, its most striking characteristic is how accurately it manages to portray a different setting from what we're used to in manga, the very realistic and grotesque in their humanity characters, and the alteration of light and shadow that fits the story's frantic bursts of action and long reflections and searches, as well as the overall work's gritty feel.

Character : 9/10
The main characters make a very interesting cast , with the extremely smart do-gooder who presses ahead regardless of difficutlies, and the twins , given an extra tinge of ambiguity by their frequent change of roles, the different approaches they chose to follow after being exposed to a traumatic experience, and the way their past is uncovered to each of them through themselves or others help give the story its edge. The supporting cast is very well chosen from across a spectrum of society , given varying roles, and seeing the various things inside man that can turn everyman into a monster.


Overall , this is the best slice of life shoujo manga I've ever read. Be it desensetized violence, edgy and improbable plot twists, a misunderstood and enigmatic prodigy, brutally cruel or heart-rendingly humane , played out in different portions and themes across the cast, dark pseudo-slavic, communist exploitation , and truly insane bishies, this manga is a perfect match for the teen getting bored with the industrial scale repetition of standardized tropes. Nah, just kidding, it's awesome, one of the best I've read in a long time.

I'll try not to spoil anything in this review, and I'll use very general terms when talking about the story itself (including things not yet in the anime as of December 2020), but if you want to stay entirely unspoiled, this review might not be for you. But the general idea is that Attack on Titan is one of if not the best pieces of fiction out there, and a lot of that hinges on the story post-season 3.

Art: For the first few volumes, I'll be honest the art wasn't very good. At all. But seeing Isayama evolve as an artist is really amazing to experience. Of course even now, the art isn't even close to the level of something like Berserk or One Punch Man, but it's actually pretty good. One thing Isayama does really well is conveying action through chaotic, sweeping lines and sound effects.

Story: The story starts off with a pretty simple premise. The last humans have lived behind concentric walls for the past 100 years to protect themselves from the giant, man-eating monsters (titans) that live on the other side. Immediately this sets up a large amount of questions. What exactly happened 100 years ago? Where do the titans come from? Why are there no records of the history from before 100 years ago? What exactly are the titans? The story takes its time answering its questions, and with each answer, more questions pop up. You get the pieces of the puzzle slowly, but the pieces are entirely out of order. And once the pieces are all in place (or at least enough pieces to make sense of it), there's the question of how the image the puzzle shows should be dealt with. And that's where the story starts getting really amazing, and starts getting more philosophical, talking about the self-perpetuating cycle of violence and hate, and well as differing views on how it can be broken. This is complemented perfectly by the story's characters.

Characters: There are 0 characters in this series that I dislike as characters. Everyone has a role to play, and they all play it perfectly. This series also has, at least for me, the saddest death that I've seen in anime, which requires good characters. The character development is fantastic, with no better examples of this than Eren and Reiner, who move in such opposite directions but at the same time are so incredibly similar, and change massively over the course of the series while still feeling completely natural. That's not something that's easy to do in a story. And another thing that's not easy to do is to have a major conflict with many sides, but to have each side (except for one) actually make so much sense in their arguments that the fandom splits because of it. There are no "bad guys" in Attack on Titan (except for the aforementioned "one side"), just good people doing what they believe is right. And in some cases, they might even be right. It's a story of many different people reacting to a situation in many different ways, but you the reader can understand why each and every character does what they do.

Attack on Titan is ending in 3 or 4 chapters. Isayama showed a rough sketch of the final panel of the series about 2 years ago. I still have absolutely no idea how it's going to end, and there are still more plot twists to come (there's stuff from the first chapter that still hasn't been answered yet). If you haven't read/watched AoT yet, do it.

This story was soo good, around chapter 70 I was worried about the story ending abruptly because I noticed there were only 90 chapters but I'm so glad the story isnt finished, I just hope that new chapters will come out soon, because I really wanna see more from nomiya and the three musketeers. they were my favorite characters. I def didn;t expect to cry as often as i did with this series but they way they depicted each characters trauma and their resilience and persistence to overcome their obstacles was so powerful, the shiratori arc with broom made me bawllllll T-T as did Nomiya at tryouts. def one of my new favorite series. also the art is amazing. nomiya was looking hot as fuck when he popped up on takahashi and showed off his 6 pack lmaooo. im also very interested in where the storyline will go between nomiya and the girl.

Nagai Yuuji's last Manga series he created "Penguin's trouble" was way better than this.

Drawings and stories and characters are really good but this manga is missing one MAIN thing its not funny as Penguins trouble.

Most of the gags are predictable in Pascal sensei but in penguins trouble or other gag mangas most of the gags are not really predictable so thats what makes other mangas funny.Pascal sensei's gags are a bit funny but not funny as laughable.

At the end I don't suggest buying this manga just watch the anime because the manga isn't really funny. Anime is a bit more funnier but not as much as laughable.

Another cheat skill ecchi genderbend isekai, another day.

This one is another generic genre, but it's relatively enjoyable.
There is a bit of ecchi, but it's not overloaded (...yet)

The art is clean and easily recognizable as a fantasy manga and the MC is relatively likeable and generic. The character designs aren't anything noteworthy so far.

It's always somewhat enjoyable to see an OP character relaxing in the middle of nowhere not realising their own power, but it's a bit too overdone and now it's not anything special. It helps that this manga doesn't take itself seriously and drops some lighthearted jokes sometimes.

This is perhaps not the ideal way to experience Astro Boy.

A disclaimer: I have not read the original manga by Osamu Tezuka, nor watched anything of the anime, save for the first episode of the 1963 series. Therefore, I cannot really compare this remake by Akira Himekawa to other versions. What I can judge, however, is how this version stands on its own.

This feels like a very condensed version of the Astro Boy story. The pacing suffers from this, as everything happens so fast that the emotional punches don't really carry much weight. While the art is nice to look at, the paneling is often confusing to the point I can't understand what is happening, and a lot of the time the manga just feels like a montage of the original story.

As for the story, it's good. There are lots of philosophical questions asked about the future of AI and the rights of intelligent robots, and in many ways you can draw parallels between the robots as the working class and humans as the middle/upper class. If you look at it from another perspective, the relationship between the robots and the humans could be seen as a comment on immigration and racism. All this packed in a child friendly way, that hopefully gets children thinking about some more difficult questions. Too bad the story loses its punch with the condensed pacing.

All in all, I don't think this is the best way to experience Astro Boy. Still it is a short version of the story that won't take up much of your time, so if you just want to get the gist of the story without having to plough through 20+ volumes of the original, this one might do the trick.